


No Star is Lost

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:45:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: He gestures for her to sit, but Beth can’t bring herself to do it. She stays standing on her tired legs, and so it’s him who sits down, or, well, not really. Who perches himself on the arm of her wicker chair, and pulls out the gun. He turns it in his hands, holds it out to her, handle first, and she tries not to think that this is the second time he’s put a gun in her hands and pointed it at himself.A missing scene from the end of 2.02 with Rio teaching Beth how to use the gun.





	No Star is Lost

“I’m gonna teach you.” 

It takes her a minute to process it, to make sure she’s heard him right, the new memory of his calloused fingers still burning a line at her temple. 

She exhales hard, her eyes searching his face for any hint of a joke or a threat, and she’s not sure what she sees, but it’s neither. It’s just Rio. Just his focus, steady and sure as he usually is, but right now it twists in her painfully, like salt in the great, gaping wound of her. 

“Why?” she breathes, and he doesn’t reply, just tilts his head back towards her house, and before she can think much more of it, she’s turned on her heel, her back to him ( _stupid_ ) and is padding slowly back towards the house. She doesn’t even have to look to know that he’s following her, can feel him like her shadow, catch him out of the corner of her eye, dark and long, even in the night. 

It’s almost too quiet – the quaint appeal of suburban life, with the thrum of the city concealed with distance and stretching, leafy trees, and she wonders if anybody heard her, saw her, electric screwdriver in hand, breaking up the quiet, tainting the picture. She’d left it on the grass before, and so she picks it up now, moving to grab the step ladder, but Rio’s already folded it down and tossed it effortlessly over his shoulder, eyeing off the stop sign she’d put up with a curious expression. He must be able to see the dents and divots in it, even in the dark, and he opens his mouth slightly, like he might ask something about it, but Beth just turns around and keeps walking. 

It puts her off balance, this dynamic. He feels firm but cautious in a way that surprises her, like he isn’t quite sure how she’s going to react, and when they reach the house, she gestures him around the side, into the yard, then back to her back patio, and he follows her quietly, obediently, and she feels as if she’s in a dream. 

Dropping the electric screwdriver to the side of the house, Rio lowers the step ladder there too, propping it against the wall, and then tilts his head back to look at her. He gestures for her to sit, but Beth can’t bring herself to do it. She stays standing on her tired legs, and so it’s him who sits down, or, well, not really. Who perches himself on the arm of her wicker chair, and pulls out the gun. He turns it in his hands, holds it out to her, handle first, and she tries not to think that this is the second time he’s put a gun in her hands and pointed it at himself. 

She doesn’t take it. 

Can’t. 

She lets out a shaky breath, folding her arms below her chest, but she doesn’t break eye contact, and then it’s Rio who’s sighing. 

“Come on now,” he says, reaching with his free hand to pry her arms apart. He takes one of her hands, cups it, turns it, and he’s unfairly warm, his skin softer than she thought it would be, and she wobbles backwards a little bit and so he holds her hand a little tighter, pressing the gun into it with the other. 

And she trembles a little when she looks down at her hand, curled around the handle of the gun, his hands either side of her own, almost engulfing her own (have his hands always been this big?) 

Maybe he feels it, because he lowers his arms, rocks back away from her, eyes fixed. 

“Check if it’s loaded,” he tells her, and Beth blinks up at him, embarrassed to say she doesn’t even know how to do that, but Rio doesn’t even blink. 

“You held a gun before, darlin’?” he asks instead, and Beth exhales a wobbly breath.

“Not a real one. I mean, except yours.” 

His face is carefully blank, and it takes him a minute to respond, and when he does, it’s not in the way she expected. 

“The grocery store –” 

She cuts him off before he can continue, oddly relieved for the honestly in the moment. 

“They were toys. We colored in the plastic tips.” 

He’s quiet for a moment, and then a little longer, before he exhales a breath in a very-almost-laugh.

“Okay,” he breathes, sliding slightly closer to her. He gently positions her hands around the gun correctly, taking her through the movements of checking the empty clip, taking off the safety, how to grip it, how to steady it, load it, aim and fire. 

She’s not sure how long they’re out there, but he does it all with his hands over hers, runs her through it twice like that, and then drops his hands and makes her do it without him, again and again, and it’s mechanical and somehow it’s intimate too, with him so close, and his voice so low. 

“It ain’t hard,” he tells her after she’s gotten it right the third, fourth, fifth time in a row. “Sometimes it’s the easiest thing in the world.” 

Beth just looks at him then, her eyes wide, and her chest suddenly clenching.

“No,” she says. “That’s not me.” 

He just watches her, then huffs out a little laugh, licking his lips. He pulls something out of the back pocket of his jeans, and she only recognises it from the one his boy had pressed to her head, all those months ago. A silencer. He gestures for the gun. 

Beth blinks, holding it a little tighter, a little closer to herself. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Takin’ the trainin’ wheels off.” 

“I can’t shoot it here,” she hisses, heart in her throat. “My children are sleeping upstairs.” 

He just rolls his eyes, watching as she fumbles, looking back up at the house, towards the kids’ rooms, like they might have heard, like they _could_. He follows her gaze, his jaw rocking back and forth, his lips settling into an easy little grin. 

“Your husband home too?” he asks, and without thinking, Beth nods. “How’s he doin’?” 

It’s enough to snap her back to reality. 

“I don’t want to talk about my husband with you,” she replies sharply, and Rio huffs out another little laugh, looking away. 

“Okay,” he says, then snatches the gun from her grip, quick enough to make her gasp, her heart lurching in her chest. He makes easy, efficient work of attaching the silencer, his long fingers firm and practiced, and Beth can’t quite tear her eyes away. 

“I’m serious, I’m not doing it here.” 

“You ain’t gotta,” he replies. “I’m just puttin’ it on for you. Don’t take it off before you do it, yeah?” 

Beth looks away then, bites hard on the inside of her cheek. 

“I still don’t know how you expect me to do it. I mean, I wouldn’t even know _where_ to do it, let alone - - “ 

He cuts her off. 

“Don’t he work at the grocery store you hit?” 

Beth blinks back at him, confused. 

“You know he does.” 

He nods at her, waiting for her to continue. He’s finished attaching the silencer now, but he doesn’t give the gun back, just lowers his hands, crosses them easily, casually, like he’s holding the neck of a beer bottle and not something he could kill with. Beth just shakes her head, forehead furrowed, mouth open, but no words are ready to come out. She’s too tired. This is too hard. 

Rio sighs.

“I mean, you got away with robbin’ it, didn’t you?” 

And Beth laughs then, gesturing with both hands towards him. 

“Got away with it feels like a relative term.”

And he grins a little at that, but keeps going. 

“How’d you do it?” 

“Rob the store?” 

“Get away with it.” 

Beth thinks, running through the plan. It almost feels like a lifetime ago.

“There aren’t any security cameras in the back.” 

But he should know that. He washed his cash there. Then, with a burgeoning horror, she realises what he means. 

“You want me to kill him there? At the store?” 

Rio shrugs. 

“It makes sense. You know nobody’s checkin’ it. It’s hidden, but still close enough to the road that there’s a lotta noise around, and you can get away quick. It’s got a lotta thoroughfare, bein’ a grocery store and all, and your sister works there, so it ain’t like you gotta worry much about your DNA lyin’ around. Situation escalates, you can tell cops you were pickin’ her up. And hell, you’ve robbed the place twice, so I’m guessin’ you know it pretty well.” 

Beth breathes out shakily, hand finding her stomach, sitting open palmed there as she looks away from him and tries to catch her fluttering breath. She lets her eyes slip shut, and she could sleep like this, she thinks, she could just drift away, slip into some dreamless slumber, where her beating heart might slow. 

Then, a hand at her neck. 

“Deep breaths, Elizabeth,” he says, voice low and gravelly in the dark, his hand big and hot and too soft at her neck, cupping it like she would a baby’s head. His thumb finds her pulse point, presses lightly there, and with his other hand finds hers again, pressing the handle of the gun into her palm. “Just remember to breathe. It’ll be done before you know it.” 

And then he’s gone, the cool air rushing her, the skin at her neck, at her hand, tingling with the memory of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from A. E. Housman's poem, 'Stars, I have seen them fall'


End file.
